


a walk's still progress made

by Anonymous



Series: a feeling's not a thing you own [11]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Depression, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:48:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21651751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Patton is dead.There's this phrase, though, from an old poem, that goes something like this:"Hope springs eternal."
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Deceit Sanders, Thomas Sanders & Thomas Sanders (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: a feeling's not a thing you own [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1453462
Comments: 11
Kudos: 39
Collections: anonymous





	a walk's still progress made

**Author's Note:**

> content warnings: not much! references to past events, and then the last paragraph contains mild body horror, major implied gore, references to suicide, you know. the usual. this is surprisingly fluffy

“Thomas.”

Virgil’s voice is firm. The camera is already set up in the middle of the living room, recording, because Virgil had set it up. Hope – Hope; that’s what he’s called! Hope, hope, hope; he likes it! – had watched Virgil set it all up.

He’s still hiding at the top of the stairs. Virgil will tell him when he should come out.

For a while, now, it’s just been Virgil with Hope, because Hope hasn’t really been existing like a Side usually does. But that’s okay! He has his window, and he has his room, and he has his best friend visiting him. Virgil’s been telling him about Thomas, and, twice, when Hope’s been very lucky, he’s said some things about the Side called Patton. Those things were said in hushed voices, when the sky was a vivid ultramarine dotted in glittering silver stars.

Hope thinks that he would have loved Patton. He likes to think that Patton will come back, and that they can play together if that happens.

“Virgil? What’s up?” asks Thomas, looking up the place where Virgil perches himself, right on that little square where the stairs turn around.

“We need to talk,” Virgil responds.

Thomas inhales and hisses through his teeth quietly. “Do we _have_ to?”

“Yes,” says Virgil. “C’mon. We just need the others.”

With a couple of quick pulls from Virgil, a man in an indigo tie rises out of the ground next to the stairs, and a man in a black bowler hat does a similar thing, but in front of the TV. Both of them are identical to Thomas, other than the fact that the man in the black bowler hat seems to have snakey-looking scales all the way down the side of his face.

“Wait, where are Roman and Remus?” Thomas’s eyebrows draw up in little curves, like little happy smiley mouths!

The man in the bowler hat speaks in a voice that is smooth and warm, like caramel being trickled over a hot fudge sundae. Wow, Hope’s kind of hungry now. He can’t go into the kitchen to get a snack, though, because Virgil told him to stay hiding for a little while longer, and Virgil is his friend, and that means that he listens to him, because Virgil won’t steer him wrong! Hope’s pretty sure that he loves Virgil, like, a _lot_.

Anyway, Hat Man says, “You shouldn’t worry about them,” and Virgil’s back stiffens. But Ethan continues, saying, “They’re not particularly at their best, as of now, and it’s for the best that we don’t involve them.”

The man in the tie nods once, then does another little nod afterwards. “Indeed. Roman hasn’t recently been at his best.”

“You can say that again,” mutters Virgil.

“Yes, I can,” says the man in the tie. Then, he repeats himself: “Roman hasn’t recently been at his best.”

Virgil opens his mouth and inhales, goes to say something with one hand raised in a flat gesture, then exhales and slumps, shaking his head a little in fond frustration. He likes that man. Hope decides that he also likes that man.

“I still want to see him, though.” Thomas sounds a little bit like a sad puppy, and it sets off every alarm in Hope’s head.

His Centre isn’t happy. Hope needs to fix that. Hope has to help, because Hope has to make Thomas happy, and keep Thomas happy, or at the very least, keep Thomas contented.

But Virgil told him to wait. Hope can’t let Virgil down. Virgil was so scared, when he first met Hope. He wasn’t hopeful at all.

Hope thinks that he might be anxious, now. Hope, that is. Not Virgil. Virgil’s probably always anxious. Huh, that must suck, especially if this is what it feels like. All that gut-churning and overthinking… Hope would like it to please stop, if it can, please?

“Believe me, Thomas, I’m worried, too, but I left them out of this for a reason,” says Virgil.

Hope watches the man in the hat slump a little, almost imperceptibly. Nobody else is looking at him.

Will Roman and Remus be his friends, too? Are they a duo, like Hope and Virgil are? They must be close to each other, he thinks, because they’re being talked about like a package deal.

“What is that reason?” asks the man in the tie.

Virgil responds by raising his arm in the direction of the window, in the opposite direction of Hope. Still, Hope feels something wrap around something inside himself, behind his sternum, and tug ever so gently.

Hope has to stay hidden, though. He can’t follow the feeling, no matter how _right_ the pull feels.

And then the gentle tug becomes a rough _yoink_. Hope becomes very aware of the floorboards for a second before he pops up in the general location that Virgil was gesturing towards.

“Holy heck, was that what the tuggy feeling was?” he asks Virgil, before looking around.

It’s like his room, but it feels more like a part of himself that’s greater than just Hope. There’s the half-room in the corner that holds a bunch of fuzzy fog, but now it looks more like a kitchen, and there’s a piece of abstract art on the wall, and there’s-

“ _Thomas_!” Hope calls out.

That’s _him_! That’s his Centre, right in front of him! That’s who Hope exists to love, so he can’t help it. He launches himself forwards, arms outstretched, and hits an invisible wall.

“What the heck?” Hope wonders, climbing up from the floor. “Thomas, why can’t I hug you?”

Tie Man blinks. “Who is this?”

Virgil gestures at Hope, and says, “This is Hope. Apparently. I mean, I think so, but I could be wrong. He could be Positivity, or Optimism, or Naivety, but either way…”

Hat Man, who has a snake eye on the snake side of his face, which Hope decides is really pretty, says, “A new Side?”

He says it like a question.

Hope answers it like one. “Yep! There was a bunch of nothing, and then some little bits of awareness, and then Virgil showed up!”

“ _Virgil_ showed up?” Tie Man tilts his head when he asks that.

“Yep!” Hope nods so that his head kind of feels shaken up, and his hair arranges itself in a new style. “And then we had a fun conversation!”

Thomas blinks at Hope, with a look on his face that’s a little similar to how Virgil looked, at first, only it makes Hope want to hold him so close immediately and make sure that he’s okay.

Unfortunately, the hold-him-close thing might have to wait for another day, because he can’t get through this darn invisible wall!

“Relax,” says Hat Man, “and stretch your arm towards Thomas.”

Of course, Hope listens to Hat Man, because he’s pretty, and he’s nice, and nice, pretty people are always good to trust! So he thinks about his blue sky, and he reaches towards Thomas, and his arm just…

It kind of just keeps going?

His fingers land in Thomas’s hair, which feels a little bit greasy, but that’s okay! That just means that Thomas’s hair is looking after itself with its own oils, just like nature intended. Then Hope pats his cheek. Thomas’s cheek is squishy and soft, and perfectly shaped to be kissed.

Finally, Hope takes hold of Thomas’s hand. Warm. Strong. _Good_.

He intertwines their fingers, and tries to communicate through a brief squeeze as to how proud he is of Thomas, because Thomas has done so much. He’s lost his emotions, but he’s still alive. He still has hope.

Hope tries not to think about that time that he remembers and doesn’t want to remember. He succeeds.

Thomas’s shoulders relax, and he smiles at Hope. He _smiles_ at _Hope_! He raises their hands once, and then he lets them drop, but he doesn’t let go.

“Hi, Hope,” he says, still with that happy little look on his squishy little face. Gosh, Hope loves him so much!

“Fascinating,” says Tie Man. “Thomas, do you think that the creation of Hope has anything to do with Dr. Faber’s suggestion for you to imagine yourself as a friend, or a child, so that you avoid saying unnecessarily cruel things about yourself?”

Virgil shakes his head. “Maybe subconsciously? I think he was forming ages before that, if he’s a new Side.”

“I remember seeing a guy who wore a dress like this!” Hope pipes up. Subsequently, he realises that, yeah, he actually _did_ do that. “Where is that guy, anyway?”

“What do you mean, ‘ _if_ he’s a new Side’?” Hat Man asks, his snakey eye narrowing at Virgil. “What else is he supposed to be? A mass hallucination?”

Tie Man groans. “We are all a single person, Ethan-” (So, Hat Man is the ‘Ethan’ that Virgil mentioned once or twice? Does that make Tie Man ‘Logan’?) “-so any hallucination would not be a shared experience.”

“Is he Roman?”

Virgil looks right at Ethan when he asks that. He asks it like a statement.

Ethan answers it like a question.

“He is not Roman.”

Virgil runs a hand through his hair, before tugging roughly. “Then is he being controlled by Roman, or Remus? Is he who he says he is?”

With a steady, even voice, Ethan says, “Hope is who he claims to be. He is not being controlled by any other Side.”

Softly, like a child, Virgil asks, “Do you promise?”

Why is he acting like that? Is this what Virgil is like around other people?

Ethan’s arm stretches across the room, brushing against Hope’s arm. He links pinky fingers with Virgil, and says, “I promise that my previous two statements were true.”

When Virgil cracks a little smile, just like Thomas did, Ethan retracts his arm.

“You know what?” Thomas says to the room at large. “Despite everything I’ve seen you guys in general do over the past few months, I still think that that’s one of your grossest skills. Please, guys, can you quit it with the stretchy arms?”

Hope’s little heart breaks in his chest as he starts to retract his arm. It probably showed on his face for a moment, because Thomas immediately grabs his hand before it gets too far away and starts holding it again.

“Not you, Hope,” he says. “You’re an angel, and I’m thrilled you’re here.”

Hope’s little heart starts fluttering again with renewed strength. He squeezes Thomas’s hand once more, because he loves Thomas, and that statement just made a burst of affection well up inside of him.

Thomas’s face turns to a frown after a second, and he turns to talk to Ethan. “But, seriously, where are Roman and Remus? I’m actually kind of worried. I haven’t really had many creative ideas, recently.”

“You are recovering from depression, so most of your energy is going into that,” says Ethan, holding his hand up like he’s inspecting his nails through his gloves. “Creating is secondary to existing.”

That really doesn’t seem to be the right thing to say. Thomas replies, “But creating is what I _do_. It’s what _humans_ do. I don’t think I can really do much recovery without either of them helping me to make things, even if it’s just a little silly story that I make up in my head.”

“They’ll be fine, I’m sure!” Hope interrupts, because Thomas is sounding pretty sad, and that’s _wrong_. Thomas isn’t _meant_ to be sad. “Ethan’s nice; he wouldn’t lie to us!”

There’s an awkward silence at that.

“Uh, yeah, he would,” says Virgil.

Hope takes a moment to blink. “But lying is _wrong_! Thomas doesn’t lie!”

“Oh, dear.” Tie Guy, who is most likely the Side that Virgil calls Logan, says, “Hope, right and wrong are not so easily defined. We used to know Ethan as Deceit, because he was the Side of Thomas who would repress aspects that none of us were capable of dealing with. He used to lie to make us scared of him, but we've all since learnt that lying can, on occasion, be good." He adjusts his tie. "For example, let’s imagine that your friend is not out as gay, and their parents are homophobic.”

Once Hope has imagined, he nods.

“Now, imagine that their parents have asked you if their child is gay,” says Logan, in a nice, even tone. He’s gentle. It’s safe. “Do you tell their parents that your friend is gay, or do you say that they are straight?”

Hope, once more, imagines. “I tell them!”

Thomas blinks. “What?”

“That’s _stupid_ ,” Virgil hisses.

“Maybe now that they know that their child is gay, they can stop being homophobic and start being nicer!” Hope tries to not sound too defensive. He keeps smiling brightly, just so nobody feels bad.

Logan shakes his head, and speaks with the same mild tone as before. “In this scenario, these parents have now disowned their child for being gay, since you’ve confirmed their suspicions. Your theoretical friend is now homeless, due to your actions.”

Oh.

A grey cloud appears.

* * *

“Hope? _Hope_!”

He blinks.

“Huh? Is everything okay?”

Thomas flings his arms around Hope, pulling him up into a half-seated position.

“Oh,” Logan is saying. “Oh, they’re _hugging_.”

“This is the other problem,” says Virgil. “Hope just sometimes does _that_.”

Ethan’s voice responds, “Oh, so it’s perfectly normal for him to drop dead?”

Hope isn’t really interested. Thomas smells like unwashed, sleepy man, and his hug is soft and firm and warm.

“That’s an exaggeration,” says Logan.

“No, it… It actually isn’t,” Virgil explains. “I’ve checked his pulse a couple of times when this happens. Sometimes he’ll die, and sometimes he’ll vanish in a puff of smoke. Sometimes I’m in the middle of a conversation with him, but then I realise that I’m in my room instead of his, and I spend a while wondering if I’ve developed him as a delusion for coping with grief. I wonder if he’s just like Roman’s fake Patton.”

“He’s not,” says Logan. “At least, to my knowledge, he doesn’t seem to be.”

“He’s not,” Ethan adds. “Trust me, he’s not.”

Hope stands close to Thomas in front of the camera once Virgil reminds them that they made their discussion into a video, and listens to Thomas end it. His “Peace out!” is really loud, and Hope almost falls over from the suddenness of it.

Afterwards, though, they cuddle up on the sofa. Thomas plays with Hope’s hair, and Ethan plays with Thomas’s, and Virgil lets Hope put his feet on his lap. Logan chooses a nice documentary for them to watch, about how dogs learn things in the first year of their lives.

Dogs are nice. They’re all _good_ , and _fluffy_ , and _perfect_. Maybe Thomas can get a dog, one day.

Maybe. Maybe.

* * *

It hurts. He’s in pain. One cranium; two jaws; two necks. Arms that wrap around himselves.

Vivisecting rats. Vivisecting people. Vivisecting Mom, or himself. Ooh, self-vivisection! He’s tried it on himselves, but he always keeps healing back together.

Sometimes, he can make anything his little hearts desire, so he makes chainsaws, and thumbscrews, and fun little nooses to see if he needs one or two to hang him and his brother up high.

Sometimes, he can’t make anything. That’s when he remembers those times where he thinks he was happy. He doesn’t know what ‘happy’ actually _is_ , but he likes to imagine it. He pretends that it’s making fun of movies that he’s seen a thousand times before, and appreciating them despite that. It’s falling asleep on the sofa with your friends, and waking up when someone’s phone alarm goes off. Maybe it’s even the pride of having made something that makes people glad that they watched it.

Usually, though, he just hurts.

It hurts.


End file.
